Category: Storytelling

Storytelling . . .

The art of storytelling has been around since the beginning of time. Storytelling has been widely used for years to share stories of celebrations, achievements, traumatic events, wars, and just personal experiences. Storytelling has been a great way for ancestors to pass down the stories of how families began and how they got to where they are today. Storytelling in the classroom offers the teacher many possibilities as a teaching tool, yet one that is not practiced as often as it has been in the past.

Uri Hasson, a professor of psychology at Princeton, gave an exceptional TED Talk where he explained the magical effects of storytelling…

“When the woman spoke English, the volunteers understood her story, and their brains synchronized. When she had activity in her insula, an emotional brain region, the listeners did too. When her frontal cortex lit up, so did theirs. By simply telling a story, the woman could plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into the listeners’ brains.” But besides synchronization, stories have become so much a part of us that we actually think in stories. We tell stories to explain how things work. We tell stories to help us make decisions. We tell stories to justify the decisions we make. We even tell stories to create our own identities.”

Think of this same situation in terms of a teacher, and her students. When a teacher tells a story to introduce a new unit or to help her students understand an abstract concept, this same reaction could happen, and the teacher has planted ideas, thoughts, and emotions into the minds of her students. Using storytelling as a teaching tool can be highly effective for all students.

“If you think about it, stories are the very origin of education. The passing down of stories from generation to generation taught us history, culture, skills, and knowledge. “Thinking of teaching as storytelling…encourages us to think of the curriculum as a collection of the great stories of our culture,” says Kieran Egan. “If we begin to think in these terms, instead of seeing the curriculum as a huge mass of materials to be conveyed to students, we can begin to think of teachers in our society as connected with an ancient and honored role. Teachers are the tellers of our culture’s tales.”

              Learning should be multi-layered. A story from me about my mother growing up during The Great Depression, working in the mills to help her family, or her memories of WWII and when the war ended would trigger ideas and stories from students, and even sometimes their parents, about their own relatives’ opposite perspective on the same historical events, this led to students interviewing family members and recording their own oral histories. This led to us looking at historical events from different points of view, which led to a lot of questions and discussions. My students took this another step which involved them researching the events and gaining more information and yet more perspectives. Such a deeper understanding of the historical events was gained because of a simple story that generated curiosity, interest, and engagement. Multi-layered lessons end in multi-layered learning which is so much more effective for the students.

              Become an expert storyteller for your students. Use stories to captivate and make their learning experiences more compelling than just teaching from the book. Storytelling can be used to introduce new topics or concepts, make real life connections, and even to model writing. Storytelling has many effective benefits for the teacher and the students:

• Being able to tell a story leads to students being able to write a story.
• Telling stories encourages students to read to find out more about an idea or event.
• Telling stories encourages students to read more and therefore, develop a more vivid vocabulary to use in their own storytelling, verbally and in writing.
• Storytelling helps students learn how to ask more effective questions.
• Telling stories and listening to stories encourages students to become critical listeners, encourages them to listen for details and descriptions, to listen for emotions, and storytelling encourages them to relate more to the ideas and the events being described.
• Storytelling also helps build relationships and community within your classroom. Personally, I have found that sharing my personal stories with my students, not just the funny, light-hearted stories, but the ones of personal trauma and sadness opens communication with my students. My willingness to share my stories encourages them to share their stories about their own personal experiences with me.
• Storytelling humanizes you and lets your students see your own imperfections, again opening communication between you and your students. 

I love this quote because I remember listening to stories from my grandfather and parents, and how listening to their voices made me feel safe and secure, warm, and comfortable like being wrapped in a blanket in front of fire with a cup of hot cocoa. ““Most importantly, storytelling is simply part of our humanity – part of our shared DNA. It soothes and feels like a warm blanket around us.” Using storytelling as a teaching tool can build student engagement and allows students to visualize content in their minds. A 2010 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed an intimate connection between the brain activity of speakers and listeners in conversation, demonstrating how the brain of an engaged listener “syncs up” with a speaker,” says A.J. Juliani. “By engaging students with compelling stories that impart important material, teachers reach students both emotionally and biochemically, increasing the potential for rich learning experiences.”

Students need stories. Students need stories that draw them in by sparking their curiosity and interest. Storytelling crosses boundaries of time, place, age, and cultures. Storytelling gives students an insight into the world outside their own lives. Storytelling exposes students to a broader vocabulary and expanded thought processes. Storytelling opens up the world to our students and lets them see the world from someone else’s perspectives.

Storytelling in the classroom has always been a passion of mine. When storytelling is done effectively there is nothing more fulfilling than seeing the light in your students’ eyes as they become intrigued and curious about the characters and events in the story. The questions they ask, the responses they share, the discussion that follows, and especially the desire to research or gather more information is enough to give this teacher’s heart a sense of fulfillment and knowing that classroom with those students is exactly where I was supposed to be. Effective storytelling generates impromptu responses like the following from students, years after they were in your classroom.

• “You were such an amazing teacher! Your stories deserve to be heard.”
• “This touched my heart as I was just recently thinking about you and how much of an impact you made on my life! You are by far one of the most special people I have ever met. Your stories are such a blessing to people and are well deserved to be told and heard. You are one of the reasons that I am so strong today. You will never be forgotten, and all of your students are so lucky to have the opportunity for you to be their teacher!”
• “This makes me so happy! I cannot wait to read every single story. Your stories are my absolute favorite!!”
• “Your stories were always the best part of the day; I can’t wait to read all that you write.”